Thursday, October 11, 2012

Raising Funds...

 
It's no secret, adoptions are EXPENSIVE..but are they worth every penny of it and more ABSOLUTELY!! We are firm believers that "God funds what He favors!" He called us to adopt the next McClard and we have absolute faith that He will provide every penny we need of our adoption expenses, just like He did with Samuel.
 
A few weeks ago we had the privilege of attending the Together for Adoption conference in Atlanta, GA. At that conference I met a very sweet woman named Rebekah who makes beautiful handmade pottery jewelry. As a ministry she gives the pieces to adopted families for a fraction of the cost and allows them to sell the pieces to family & friends as a fundraiser. I'm featuring a few of the pieces today in hopes that someone out there ready may want to snatch one up. Each piece is available for a minimum $24 donation and all proceeds go directly to our adoption expenses.
 





If you are interested in purchasing one feel free to email me at mcclardj@earthlink.net I'll ship them FREE to anywhere in the US!

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Catching up...and waiting again

8 months...that's a long time to abandon a blog.. If anyone is out there still reading thank you, I'll try to catch you up on the journey we have been walking on for these past few months. Shortly after my last post in February, the phone rang on a Friday afternoon with news we thought would be life changing for our family... It was the director of our adoption agency with news that our little guys birthmother was expecting a baby girl in May and wanted to place her with our family! We were over the moon with excitement!! We had been praying about the Lord's timing and starting adoption #2 and could not believe we were being given the chance to adopt the sibling of our sweet boy! We needed to update our home study and do it fast! The next 2 weeks were spent taking care of reference letters, medical forms, fingerprints, background checks, & a visit from our social worker. We were officially approved to adopt again! We spent the next few weeks finishing up our school year and anticipating the arrival of our new baby girl. We kept the news very private, only telling our immediate family and a few very close friends, those same sweet friends blessed us with bags of sweet baby girl clothes and another crib. Before we knew it May was here, the little pink clothes were washed and ready to go, the crib was set up next to our bed and we were anxiously awaiting the phone to ring with the exciting news that she was here! When the phone rang that Tuesday afternoon the news was not what we had been hoping for...the baby had been delivered, but our birthmother was having second thoughts about placing her for adoption...at this point all we could was wait and pray. 7 days later we got the final phone call, she had decided to parent this baby.

Our hearts were broken, we had never expected this decision. I walked through some amazing emotions during those next few weeks...grief, sadness, doubt, anger...I experienced it all! I honestly thought that the journey of waiting so long for our first adoption was hard, but this experience was ten times harder! My sinful flesh wanted to be angry with her choice, but every time I looked at my sweet Sammy's face and the most precious gift she gave me by choosing me to be his Mama I could not be angry with her choice. God's ways are so much higher than ours and He knew from the moment that child was conceived who should be her parents. I didn't understand His plan during this time, I couldn't feel His hand, but knew that I could trust His heart. More than ever my eyes were opened at how adoption is such a clear picture of our redemption as His children.

We spent the next few months grieving, packing up all the baby things we had gotten ready, explaining why "baby sister" wasn't coming right now, and leaning on the Lord for comfort. I now affectionately refer to Summer 2012 as my "fertilizer summer". The application of fertilizer is stinky, messy and gross, but the end result when you have that lush, beautiful lawn is worth all the effort. This journey has been "fertilizer to my faith." The summer ended and we started praying about beginning our adoption journey again. We knew without a doubt we wanted to add another little one to our family and it seemed like the timing was right to start the process again. Fortunately all the paperwork was already done and all we needed to do was prepare a new profile book showing potential birthmothers a little bit about our family. We finished our book in early September, dropped it off with our agency and are officially "waiting" again. Will our wait be long or short?? Only the Lord knows...obviously we pray for short...but we know His timing is perfect and He makes no mistakes. Thank you to those who love us, support us, and pray for us...you are our greatest blessing! Thank you for praying with us as we grow our family by two more feet...

Saturday, February 11, 2012

February...

A few more photos from "Project Life"...we made a day trip to IKEA to pick up some new furniture we had been waiting to get (it all fit in our new van!). The trip resulted in a living room paint job...love this new color "Whispering Wheat"...it's so fresh and clean!
Emily and Dave headed out to "Daddy-Daughter Date Night" at Chick-fil-a.
Trotting around before bed in his jammies, with his cuppy!

Monday, February 6, 2012

January...

I started a new project this year called "Project Life", taking at least one photo every day this year. Here are some of my favorites from January...

Most exciting pic of the month is our new van!! Dave found a great deal on it with everything we were looking for and only 55K miles...such a blessing...best part is that we paid CASH for it!!

How we start our mornings...A special treat...Dessert Nachos!I found these silly masks cleaning out a closet...guess I had some kind of circus party up my sleeve?!?!Cheering on our Baltimore Ravens! Hoping they were going to make it to the Superbowl...
Celebrating our 2 year "Gotcha Day" Anniversary!!
This tunnel was one of his favorite Christmas gifts!Playing "Scotland Yard"...finishing the leftover Christmas candy...

Monday, January 16, 2012

Happy 2nd Birthday!!!

Our sweet boy is TWO!!! Can't believe it...We had a blast at his airplane themed party this weekend...Enjoy the pics!!














Friday, January 6, 2012

Happy New Year!

We love spending quiet nights in on New Years Eve...and Nathan & Emily love the thrill of staying up til' midnight! We had Grandma & Paw Paw over for dinner, we watched movies, played games, watched the ball drop and were tucked in bed by 12:15!

The kids wanted to have appetizers for dinner...
It isn't New Years without silly hats!
Happy New Year!! (as the confetti fills all the grape juice glasses!)


Merry Christmas!!

Catching up with some of our Christmas pictures for you... Em and her doll after Christmas Eve church.Grandma always has a scavenger hunt with them after our Christmas Eve dinner. They run around her house finding clues that lead them to a little gift. Sammy was excited to join in on the fun this year!Em and I made this beauty for Christmas morning breakfast. It was a yummy treat to snack on all afternoon!
After all the unwrapping, Sammy had a blast rolling around in all the wrapping paper trash!

Nathan was excited to get a Joe Flacco jersey...Emily made Samuel a special ABC book with pictures of all his favorite things!
A bonnet was one of the things she had been wanting...she was so excited to get one!
Ending the day singing "Happy Birthday to Jesus"!